Platelet Rich Plasma Therapy for Chronic Knee Joint Pain

In old age the main suffering comes from pain in the body of which the common and most disabling is the knee pain. This suffering can be mitigated by the healing capacity of platelet rich plasma from one’s own blood. The tender touch of PRP to the damaged knee will completely heal it.

Dr. Sudheer Dara, Director of Epione & Chief of Pain Medicine, Said, “Patients will initially present with minimal discomfort while climbing stairs, walking and slowly progressing to pain at rest stiffness of joints, swelling and redness in the joint followed by severe impairment, to a stage where pain becomes unbearable. intimately replacing your knee joint. This whole process occurs over a period of 2-5 years.”

In the initial days of pain, patients are advised physiotherapy along with other physical modalities for few years, along with some pain killers, few patients become addicted to pain killers leading to an even major problem like renal dysfunction. The initial remedies only offer symptomatic relief. These measures won’t prevent the ongoing damage which is inviolable leading to the replacement of whole knee.

But all this is now a thing of the past, until the regenerable medicine came up in the form of platelet rich plasma (PRP)therapy. a smile, non-invasive and permanent solution to knee pain. PRP therapy is done as a day dare procedure wherein patients own blood is taken (20-30ml) and processed. in a specialized machine to extract the growth factor. Human blood has many growth factors present in the platelets. When injected into the torn tissue, the help to repair it and it also leads to regeneration of new healthy tissue and it is then injected into the degenerated cartilage, ultimately leading to repair and replacement of the degenerated cartilage with new healthy ones. The entire process takes almost three months for pain and inflammation to come down and for the complete regeneration of the cartilage the major advantages of this therapy is that, it is permanent with zero complications. You can resume your work immediately and there is no need to undergo knee replacement surgery in future

The procedure is very simple and done as a day -care procedure. after the doctor identifies the damaged tissue, the patient needs to undergo few tests. Following those tests, preparation of PRO is done in operation theatre under strict aseptic precautions. patients pawn blood is take using a thin needle. The blood is transferred in a special container called cartridge and this cartridge is place into a special machine for centrifugation. after centrifugation. The blood is separated into two different layers. The lower layer is the RBC and top most layer is called the plasma these two layers are separated by closing a channel between them. Present in the cartridge after this another round of spin is done which will separate 2ml of platelet rich in growth factors. The entire processing of preparation takes 20-30 minutes. The preparation for PRP is done in a specialized   machine under appropriate temperatures. 

After the PRP is prepared, the patient is taken into the operation theatre the torn area is identified under ultra sound or fluoroscopic machine and the growth factors pared are injected into the damaged area.

Platelets are small cells present in the body which are involved in the clothing process. once the PRP is injected into the damaged area. It causes inflammation that in turn triggers the healing cascade. There are a number of growth factors and enzymes released which will lead to formation of collagen and therapy repair and regenerate the tissue. It takes almost three months for the entire tissue to regenerate again.

No other treatment modalities for knee plan have proven to be this efficacious as the PRP therapy. Being a non-surgical treatment, it doesn’t require any bed rest and it is a natural way of healing the knee joint and eliminating the knee pain. Like a true love story. PRPs healing touch to the damaged joint is a boon to all suffering patients.

Book Appointment: Dr. Sudheer Dara, Director of Epione & Chief of Pain Medicine